His Eminence, the Religious Authority Grand Ayatullah Aluzma Sayyed Muhammad Hussein Fadlullah, issued a statement denouncing the recent position by the Vatican that “he who denies the Holocaust denies the existence of God”. Following is the text of the statement:

“In the midst of the developments engulfing the world these days, and in light of the Israeli carnage that killed more than 6000 Palestinian women and children and elderly in Gaza, and while the Muslim world expected the Vatican to support voices calling for the prosecution of Israel’s leaders for their crimes and use of internationally-banned weapons – and because the Vatican espouses the message of Christianity in deterring tyrants and supporting the vulnerable and the oppressed as Jesus (p) did – the Vatican issued a surprising statement saying that he who denies the Holocaust denies the existence of God.

It is certainly sad and depressing that the statement issued by the Vatican came in the wake of Jewish threats to the Pope, most notably by the Chief Rabbinate of the Zionist entity which boycott its relations with the Vatican after the Pope pardoned a British bishop who questioned the Nazis use of gas chambers in executing the Jewish during the Second World War. The Rabbinate only resumed relations with the Vatican when the Pope supported the “Jewish brothers” as he said, and stressed that the Holocaust must not be denied.

The Pope’s statement provoked many questions over the independence of the first Catholic site in the world, and its submission – in a way or another – to Israeli and Jewish pressures and to the conditions of the enemy and its rabbis. The Pope did not denounce these rabbis for describing the Arabs as snakes and bugs that must be killed, or for issuing a fatwa upon which the Israeli army can kill the Palestinian civilians, including children, women, and elderly.

We are fully aware that the Holocaust issue espoused by the West – with it being only based on the Israeli and Zionist story and manipulated to a large extent to control the Europeans – has become non-negotiable and above any questions or scientific and objective researches. As such, anyone attempting to address the issue of the Holocaust in a scientific manner in a bid to clarify this issue and reveal the miseries of the European people during World War II will be condemned, slandered, and pursued, akin to French writer, Roger Garaudy, and others. But to our surprise, the Vatican itself succumbed to this logic and thus the largest official Catholic authority fell under pressures applied by the Jews who seek to see this authority submitting not only to their political pressure and superstitions and myths but also to their defamed and false stories. The Jews intend to tighten their grip over spiritual, scientific, and political powerful positions in the world and force them to work in accordance with the hellish and racist schemes in regarding the non-Jews as inferiors who must be servants for the Jews and their projects.

We will not engage in a debate with the Pope on whether the Jews are innocent of killing Jesus (p), but we are fully aware that they cannot be acquitted from the blood of the Palestinians in Gaza and elsewhere. We expected him to speak out and condemn the heinous crimes perpetrated by the enemy in Gaza. However, the Vatican was only able to issue “shy” words calling for an end to the violence in Gaza. We expected the Vatican to support the Palestinian cause, the most just issue in the world, and the Palestinian people who are the most oppressed in this era in which arrogant powers oppress the vulnerable people who were a great concern for Jesus and his message and march.

While we blame the Pope for this shortcoming and believe that the historical German complex must not play any role in this regard, we emphasize the need to continue the Christian-Islamic dialogue and initiate dialogue with the Pope over this issue among others, for we believe that the pressures applied by the Jews who usurped Palestine must not create a chasm in the Islamic-Christian relations. Furthermore, our perspective of the Christians is based on a Quranic view which says that they are the closest to the believers. We also call upon the Muslims worldwide to carry out a calm and rational dialogue with the Christians over the ideological and political issues, in addition to the human issues in the world. We also call upon them to pay attention to the Zionist attempts to foment a Christian-Islamic feud, namely the pressures exercised on the official Christian institution or the Western research centers under the pretext that these centers are anti-Semitic and that they seek to end Israel’s existence.”

Bishop Richard Williamson, who was recently forgiven by Pope Benedict XVI stands firm about his position regarding the holocaust.

According to a report by the French television station 24, the Pope dismissed the ruling that four bishops left Christianity. One of these bishops was Williamson.

Bishop Williamson in an interview with a Swedish publication doubted the existence of gas chambers and human ovens during the Nazi reign in Germany. He considers that saying 6 millions Jews were killed is an exaggeration.

This English bishop in an interview conducted with the German publication Spiegel said yesterday that gas chambers in German concentration camps did not exist.

The Zionist lobby is infuriated with Williamson’s statements. This dispute could cause serious problems to the Vatican-Zionist relationship.

A Museum of Tolerance built on top of a Muslim Cemetery in Jerusalem? Hard to Believe?

It must be stopped!!!!

Join the Campaign

Can you even imagine the possibility of the State of Israel and the Jerusalem municipality building a Museum of Tolerance on the site of a Muslim Cemetery in the heart of Jerusalem? Well it is happening. We tried to fight it in court but we lost. Imagine what would happen if someone in Europe – in Germany or Austria for instance, tried to build a Museum of Tolerance on top of Jewish graves.

The legal battle has been lost, now we must move on to the political battle. We must prevent this museum from being built on that site. Jerusalem will never be a city of peace if this is allowed to move forward.

Jerusalem is the one city in the world where there is a real potential to demonstrate that Jews, Christians and Muslims can live together in peace, understanding and real tolerance. Jerusalem is the place where we can learn to celebrate the diversities of our civilizations. If the construction of this museum is allowed to resume on top of a Muslim cemetery of religious and historical importance in the center of Jerusalem, this Holy city, will never realize its potential.

For the peace of Jerusalem, for the chance of peace, understanding and tolerance between Jews, Muslims and Christians we must stop this dangerous act.

We call on the Government of Israel and the Municipality of Jerusalem to stop the construction of the Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance in name of public safety and in protection of the reputation of the State of Israel and the safety of Jews all around the world.

We call on Jerusalemites, Israelis and Palestinians to join our campaign.

We call on the candidates for Mayor of Jerusalem and for the Jerusalem City Council to speak out during the remaining days of the campaign – promise us that you won’t let this Museum be built in the Mamilla Cemetery.

We call on the Chief Rabbis of Israel not to let this shame on Judaism take place. In the name of Judaism, do not allow this Museum to built on top of Muslim graves.

We call on Israelis and Palestinians alike to send letters to your Presidents, Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers urging them to stop the construction of the Museum in that location.

We call on Jews all over to write to the Wiesenthal Center Director Rabbi Hier urging him to change the location of the Museum. We urge Jews everywhere to write to the Government of Israel voice your objection to building a Museum of Tolerance on top of Muslim graves.

We call on Rabbis around the world to join the campaign. We are looking for several Rabbis who will coordinate organizing a Rabbis letter against the building of the Museum over Muslim graves.

We call on citizens of the world to join the campaign – raise your voices, – write to your own governments urging them to pressure the Israeli government to cease the construction of the Museum in that location.

ISRAEL’S SUPREME COURT RULES CENTER FOR HUMAN DIGNITY-MUSEUM OF TOLERANCE JERUSALEM CAN BUILD ON WEST JERUSALEM SITE

The Israeli High Court of Justice has ruled that the building of the Museum is legal and the construction can continue. In February 2006 the High Court issued an injunction for freezing the construction. Since that time the Court has been considering the evidence presented for and against building the Museum. The decision of the Court places the burden on the Muslim Authorities to accept the “offers” made to them by the Wiesenthal Center to move the graves that will be affected by the building the Museum. The Muslim Authorities rejected all of the offers and claimed that the sanctity of the whole cemetery must be respected. In the initial groundbreaking and first construction some 300 skeletons were dug up and “boxed” by the Israeli Antiquities Authorities.

Furthermore, the Court rejected the claims by some experts (supported by IPCRI and others against the building of the Museum) and in favor of other experts brought by the Wiesenthal Center, that the construction of the Museum would not lead to a disruption of public order and that the Arab and Muslim world would accept the construction of the Museum as they had accepted the construction of the parking lot over part of the Museum in the mid 1960’s.

The Islamic Movement in Israel vowed to fight a Supreme Court ruling on Wednesday that a Museum of Tolerance could be built on its planned site in central Jerusalem even though it was part of the old, deconsecrated Mamila Muslim cemetery.

Work on the $250-million museum, which is being built adjacent to Independence Park by the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, hit a snag three years ago when dozens of Muslim graves were found on a section of the site during the required preliminary excavations. Two years ago, a court ordered a freeze in construction.

The museum said Wednesday that construction would resume immediately.

But a showdown is expected, with the Islamic group set to announce its plans at a press conference in east Jerusalem on Thursday morning.

“All citizens of Israel, Jews and non-Jews, are the real beneficiaries of this decision,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Wiesenthal Center. “Moderation and tolerance have prevailed.”

In their unanimous ruling, the justices noted that no objections had been lodged back in 1960, when the municipality put a parking lot over a small section of the graveyard, and that for the past half-century the site had been in public use.

The court said that an alternative proposal put forward by planners – including reburial of the bones or covering the graves – was “satisfactory” in trying to reconcile religious attitudes toward respecting the dead with the requirements of the law.

The court also noted that the Islamic organization that had filed the appeal, Al-Aksa Foundation, which is connected with the Islamic Movement, was declared illegal by Public Security Minister Avi Dichter earlier this year for its alleged ties with Hamas. Nevertheless, the court found, this in itself was not grounds to reject the appeal.

The court also said concerns that violence would break out if the construction went ahead were “not within the confines” of the ruling.

The decision came after seven months of arbitration failed to resolve the dispute.

An attempt to reach an out-of-court settlement broke down when Islamic officials rejected an offer by the museum to move the bones to a nearby neglected Muslim cemetery and to renovate it. The Wiesenthal Center refused to relocate the museum or to avoid construction on the small section of the site where the bones were found, saying the area was needed for the museum.

The bones, several hundred years old, were found on 12 percent of the site.

Islamic officials, who had repeatedly ruled out any construction at the site, criticized Wednesday’s ruling.

“We did not expect much from the court, and it is clear that it is part of the Israeli establishment,” Islamic Movement spokesman Zahi Nujidat said. “We will not give up easily.”

In the past, public protests organized by the movement have turned violent.

The museum was originally expected to be completed in 2007. The Wiesenthal Center has spent millions of dollars in legal fees.

Hier said construction would take between three and three-and-a-half years.

According to the court’s decision, construction can resume immediately, except for the small section where the human remains were found.

The court gave project managers 60 days to agree with the Antiquities Authority on a method for either removing any human remains for reburial or installing a barrier between the building’s foundations and the ground below that would prevent graves from being disturbed.

The site was the city’s main Muslim cemetery until 1948.

The Wiesenthal Center has cited rulings by Muslim courts, the most recent in 1964, that canceled the sanctity of the site because it was no longer used.

Hier said that the site, which was given to the center by the Israel Lands Administration and the Jerusalem Municipality in the ’90s, had never been designated by Israeli authorities as a cemetery, and that for three decades it had been used as parking lot.

He added that throughout the Arab world, including in the Palestinian Authority, there had been extensive building on abandoned cemetery sites.

The museum construction site was dedicated with great fanfare in 2004, with top government officials and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in attendance.

The museum – which is being designed by world-renowned architect Frank Gehry and will include a theater complex, conference center, library, gallery and lecture halls – seeks to promote unity and respect among people of all faiths.

“Jerusalem is 3,000 years old, and every stone and parcel of land has a history that is revered by people of many faiths,” Hier said. “We are deeply committed to do everything in our power to respect this sacred past, but at the same time, we must allow Jerusalem to have a future.”

From the Weisenthal Center Web site:

“All citizens of Israel, Jews and non-Jews, are the real beneficiaries of this decision.” Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center applauded today’s Israeli Supreme Court decision allowing the Frank O. Gehry-designed Center for Human Dignity – Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem (MOTJ) to be built on its planned site in the center of the city. “All citizens of Israel, Jews and non-Jews, are the real beneficiaries of this decision,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. “Moderation and tolerance have prevailed. The MOTJ will be a great landmark promoting the principles of mutual respect and social responsibility.” Construction on the project will resume immediately.
(cllick on above photo for hi-res image)

“Jerusalem is 3,000 years old and every stone and parcel of land has a history that is revered by people of many faiths. We are deeply committed to do everything in our power to respect that sacred past, but at the same time, we must allow Jerusalem to have a future and we are honored to be given an opportunity to be a part of that future,” Rabbi Hier concluded.

Jews outraged by construction
at site of famed Vilnius cemetery
By Dinah A. Spritzer

PRAGUE (JTA) — Jews inside and outside of Vilnius are outraged at Lithuanian officials who have allowed construction on land believed to cover part of the country’s largest Jewish cemetery.

Development of the King Mindaugas apartments is the second building project in two years that authorities have allowed on the area, one of the Lithuanian capital’s prime real estate sites.

The city in May reportedly agreed to an international expert committee’s recommendation that construction on the site be halted and that a geophysical survey be carried out in the disputed area. But construction has continued nonetheless.

“The government is playing a game with us, saying one thing and doing another,” Simon Gurevichius, executive director of the Jewish Community of Lithuania, told JTA in a telephone interview.

Gurevichius said Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus promised the Jewish community that a second building would not go up, “and meanwhile the digging is going on at a frantic pace where we know there are Jewish bones.”

Estimates put the number of those buried at the Snipiskes Cemetery at some 10,000 over six centuries, although many bodies were removed by the Soviet regime when it controlled Lithuania. Prior to World War II, Vilnius was one of European Jewry’s most vital centers of religious life and education.

The city first sold part of a vast tract of land in the city center, occupied in part by the cemetery, to a local developer in 2003. Despite complaints by the 5,000-strong Jewish community, the city in 2005 allowed the construction of an apartment complex. Gurevichius estimates that apartment prices start at $400,000.

This February, the city granted a second building permit after receiving permission from the Ministry of Culture, which has the power to stop projects that interfere with ancient sites and ruins.

Based on archival research it commissioned, the city argued that the current construction does not overlap with the cemetery grounds.

After pressure and intervention from international voices such as the U.S. Embassy in Vilnius and the American Jewish Committee, the Lithuanian Prime Minister’s Office agreed in March to an expert committee of Jewish leaders, government officials and members of the historical institute that would try to resolve the boundary dispute.

The state-run Lithuanian Historical Institute declared in May that the construction area in question does encroach on the cemetery’s borders, but its recommendation to stop construction has been ignored. In an apparent bureaucratic snafu that Gurevichius attributes to ill will, the city and state authorities claim they are not following the institute document because it lacks the proper signatures.

Ina Irens, chief officer of the Vilnius municipal government’s international relations department, wrote JTA by e-mail that the city was aware of the controversy on the cemetery boundaries and was still waiting for the expertise from the Lithuanian Institute of History and the final document from the panel of experts.

The document in question was signed by the institute’s director, Gurevichius said, but one copy lacks the signatures of the two researchers who helped him. Now he worries that in a few months, the apartment building will be completed and the city will say, “It’s here now, it would just cost too much to tear it down,” Gurevichius said.

Andrew Baker, director of international relations for the American Jewish Committee, said the expert group’s 10 members — half of whom were Lithuanian — unanimously recommended that construction be halted until further research was conducted.

Baker said he told Lithuanian officials, including the foreign minister, that “this is an unacceptable response and surely the government could do more. It is hard not to conclude that the Lithuanian government has acted in bad faith.”

While the wrangling continues in Vilnius, the London-based Committee to Protect Jewish Cemeteries in Europe is convinced that the ongoing apartment construction, according to its own research in Vilnius, is disrupting the dead, which is a violation of Jewish law.

The cemetery committee, the Conference of European Rabbis and some 100 observant Jews held a prayer vigil in front of the European Commission in Brussels last week to protest the construction.

Abraham Ginsberg, the executive director of the cemetery committee, said: “We will protest at Lithuanian embassies around Europe, and men in black hats and long beards will lay down on the site if the construction does not stop.”

That Barack Obama trounced John McCain last Tuesday should have surprised no one. In fact, in this column, weeks ago, I stated emphatically that John McCain could no more beat Barack Obama than Bob Dole could beat Bill Clinton. He didn’t. (Hence a vote for John McCain was a “wasted” vote, was it not?) I also predicted that Obama would win with an electoral landslide. He did. The real story, however, is not how Barack Obama defeated John McCain. The real story is how John McCain defeated America’s conservatives.

For all intents and purposes, conservatism–as a national movement–is completely and thoroughly dead. Barack Obama did not destroy it, however. It was George W. Bush and John McCain who destroyed conservatism in America.

Soon after G.W. Bush was elected, it quickly became obvious he was no conservative. On the contrary, George Bush has forever established himself as a Big-Government, warmongering, internationalist neocon. Making matters worse was the way Bush presented himself as a conservative Christian. In fact, Bush’s portrayal of himself as a conservative Christian paved the way for the betrayal and ultimate destruction of conservatism (something I also predicted years ago). And the greatest tragedy of this deception is the way that Christian conservatives so thoroughly (and stupidly) swallowed the whole Bush/McCain neocon agenda.

So far, it seems as though they may be on to something. A Pew Research Center poll (6/18=29/08; reported 7/15/08) found that twelve percent of both Democrats and Republicans reported having the erroneous belief, while 10 percent of all voters profess to not knowing his religion because they’ve “heard different things” about it. Fifty-two percent of respondents who knew Obama was a Christian intended to vote for him, versus 37 percent of those who mistakenly believed he was Muslim.

But with few exceptions, media have not reacted nearly as forcefully to the bigotry behind the rumor campaign on their own turf as they did when the tactic was tried in Poland. Instead, journalists often accepted the idea that there was something suspicious or bad about being Muslim by referring to the canard as a “smear”

Inter-faith dialogue has become an urgent necessity today. In this regard, what role can or should madrasas play? Can they indeed play any role at all in this? Before discussing this issue, it is important to understand why inter-faith dialogue has become so necessary today.

Undoubtedly, in today’s world inter-community harmony is a major need, and the lack of it has emerged as a major challenge. Inter-faith and inter-community harmony must be built on the foundations and concerns that different faith communities share in common. It must also seek to build bridges of understanding between these communities, and to remove mutual misunderstandings that are a major source of inter-community conflict.

In the aftermath of the attacks of 9/11, Muslim religious groups in the West, for instance, have increasingly realised the pressing need for inter-faith dialogue. They have invited people of other faiths to visit mosques and the offices of Muslim organisations so that they can observe what happens therein and can have their questions and concerns about Islam and Muslims answered. This has had a positive fall-out in terms of improving inter-community relations, which is itself something that Muslims themselves require.

Several Muslim countries are also developing plans for promoting inter-faith dialogue. In June 2008 the Rabita al-Alami al-Islami (‘World Muslim Council’) organised an international conference on inter-faith dialogue. This was a very major initiative. At the conference it was decided that an international institution would be established to further promote this sort of dialogue. It was also decided to institute an award for inter-faith dialogue work. Through these and similar initiatives, one hopes that Muslims will now play a major role in promoting inter-faith understanding and peaceful dialogue.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama made one speech in March to damp down the furor over his relationship with his controversial former pastor Jeremiah Wright. He made another speech at the NAACP convention in July. Other than those two speeches, he has not uttered another word about racial issues since.

Republican rival John McCain spoke at the same NAACP convention. Shortly after that, he issued a terse statement backing the Ward Connerly concocted anti-affirmative action initiative on the November ballot in Arizona and two other states. Other than that, he has not uttered a single word about racial issues since.

The audience for McCain and Obama’s speeches at the NAACP convention were mostly blacks. That reinforced the notion that racial issues are by, and for, blacks, with no broad policy implications for all Americans as issues such as health care, jobs and the economy, terrorism and Iraq.

About the only talk about race during the campaign has been the interminable Hydra headed question of: Can Obama make history by being the first African-American president? And if he doesn’t will race sink him? That’s hardly the candid, free-wheeling, in-depth talk about the problems that impact the lives of millions of black, Latino, Asian, and American Indian voters. Minority voters make up about one quarter of American voters, and they deserve to hear what the candidates have to say about racial matters and, more importantly, what their administration plans to do about them.

Obama and McCain’s racial blind spot has been ritual blindness in all candidates in recent America presidential races. Racial issues have seeped into presidential debates only when they ignite public anger and division. In a 1988 debate, Bush Sr. hammered Democratic contender Michael Dukakis as being a card carrying ACLU’er, a milksop on crime, and tossed in the Willie Horton hit to drive home the point. In one of their debates in 2000, Bush and Democratic challenger Al Gore clashed over affirmative action

Race has been a taboo subject for presidents and their challengers on the campaign trail for the past two decades for a simple reason. No president or presidential challenger, especially a Democratic challenger, will risk being tarred as pandering to minorities for the mere mention of racial problems. In stark contrast, Obama, let alone McCain, would never worry about being accused of pandering to Christian Evangelicals by talking incessantly about gay marriage and abortion.

(This prophecy, by Benjamin Franklin,was made in a “CHIT CHAT AROUND THE TABLE DURING INTERMISSION,”at the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention of 1787. This statementwas recorded in the dairy of Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, a delegatefrom South Carolina.)

“I fully agree with General Washington, that we mustprotect this young nation from an insidious influence and impenetration.The menace, gentlemen, is the Jews.

“In whatever country Jews have settled in any greatnumber, they have lowered its moral tone; depreciated its commercialintegrity; have segregated themselves and have not been assimilated;have sneered at and tried to undermine the Christian religionupon which that nation is founded, by objecting to its restrictions;have built up a state within the state; and when opposed havetried to strangle that country to death financially, as in thecase of Spain and Portugal.

“For over 1,700 years, the Jews have been bewailingtheir sad fate in that they have been exiled from their homeland,as they call Palestine. But gentlemen, did the world give it tothem in fee simple, they would at once find some reason for notreturning. Why? Because they are vampires, and vampires do notlive on vampires. They cannot live only among themselves. Theymust subsist on Christians and other people not of their race.

“If you do not exclude them from these United States,in their Constitution, in less than 200 years they will have swarmedhere in such great numbers that they will dominate and devourthe land and change our form of government, for which we Americanshave shed our blood, given our lives our substance and jeopardizedour liberty.

Which country is the rogue nation? Iraq? Iran? Or the United States? Syndicated columnist Charley Reese asks this question in a recently published article.

Reese notes that it is the US that routinely commits “acts of aggression around the globe.”

The US government has no qualms about dropping bombs on civilians whether they be in Serbia, the Middle East, or Africa. It is all in a good cause – our cause.

This slaughtering of foreigners doesn’t seem to bother the American public. Americans take it for granted that Americans are superior and that American purposes, whatever they be, take precedence over the rights of other people to life and to a political existence independent of American hegemony.

The Bush regime has come up with a preemption doctrine that justifies attacking a country in order to prevent the country from possibly becoming a future threat to the US. “Threat” is broadly defined. It appears to mean the ability to withstand the imposition of US hegemony. This insane doctrine justifies attacking China and Russia, a direction in which the Republican presidential candidate John McCain seems to lean.

The callousness of Americans toward the lives of other peoples is stunning. How many Christian churches ask God’s forgiveness for having been rushed into an error that has killed, maimed, and displaced a quarter of the Iraqi population?

John McCain voted against establishing a national holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Now he says his position has “evolved,” yet he’s continued to oppose key civil rights laws.1

According to Bloomberg News, McCain is more hawkish than Bush on Iraq, Russia and China. Conservative columnist Pat Buchanan says McCain “will make Cheney look like Gandhi.”2

His reputation is built on his opposition to torture, but McCain voted against a bill to ban waterboarding, and then applauded President Bush for vetoing that ban.3

McCain opposes a woman’s right to choose. He said, “I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned.”4

The Children’s Defense Fund rated McCain as the worst senator in Congress for children. He voted against the children’s health care bill last year, then defended Bush’s veto of the bill.5

He’s one of the richest people in a Senate filled with millionaires. The Associated Press reports he and his wife own at least eight homes! Yet McCain says the solution to the housing crisis is for people facing foreclosure to get a “second job” and skip their vacations.6

Many of McCain’s fellow Republican senators say he’s too reckless to be commander in chief. One Republican senator said: “The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine. He’s erratic. He’s hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me.”7

McCain talks a lot about taking on special interests, but his campaign manager and top advisers are actually lobbyists. The government watchdog group Public Citizen says McCain has 59 lobbyists raising money for his campaign, more than any of the other presidential candidates.8

McCain has sought closer ties to the extreme religious right in recent years. The pastor McCain calls his “spiritual guide,” Rod Parsley, believes America’s founding mission is to destroy Islam, which he calls a “false religion.” McCain sought the political support of right-wing preacher John Hagee, who believes Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for gay rights and called the Catholic Church “the Antichrist” and a “false cult.”9

He positions himself as pro-environment, but he scored a 0—yes, zero—from the League of Conservation Voters last year.10